Ethnic Tensions Arise in Timbuktu After Islamists Leave

A Malian child returned to a school that Islamist occupiers had closed when they took Timbuktu. Most of the school year was lost.

Fred Dufour / Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By LYDIA POLGREEN

February 1, 2013

TIMBUKTU, Mali — Zahby Ould Ibrahim’s general store was looted to the studs this week. The horde that descended upon it took not just the shop’s stock of pots, pans and bedding but the electric sockets, the light bulbs and the doorframe, too.

A few shops away, Mahamane Dguitteye’s grocery store, its shelves lined with packets of spaghetti, bottles of olive oil and bars of soap, was completely untouched.

The main difference between the men? Mr. Ibrahim is an Arab. Mr. Dguitteye is a black African of the Songhai ethnic group.

“They bypassed my shop because I am not an Islamist, I am not an Arab, I am not light skinned,” Mr. Dguitteye said. “So they let me be.”

Malian troops stood over prisoners at a camp in Timbuktu on Friday. The army has been accused of mistreating suspects.

Fred Dufour / Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The looting that took place here, along with reports of army executions of suspected Islamists and their allies, has raised fears that Mali, after two decades of peace among its many ethnic groups, is headed for a period of deep ethnic tension. That prospect is dampening the celebrations over the retaking of Timbuktu on Monday by French and Malian soldiers from the Islamist militants who occupied it.

The rebellion in Mali started with disgruntled members of the Tuareg ethnic group, who have risen up three times since Mali won its independence from France in 1960 to demand a state of their own. But Islamists with links to an extremist group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, quickly overran the secular rebels. They planned to turn northern Mali into an Islamic state, and some ethnic Arabs and black Africans joined their cause.

These alliances have driven deep wedges in this crossroads city, where the two ancient superhighways of the Sahara — the fabled caravan route and the Niger River — meet, bringing travelers from far and wide who have long found ways to live together in relative peace.

“Before, we were friends,” said Dramane Cissé, the imam of one of the city’s most important mosques. “But this is not the first time the Tuaregs have made trouble. They brought calamity on us. After this, the relationship will not be the same.”

The rebels wanted “to take away everything that made Timbuktu Timbuktu,” said Mahalmoudou Tandina, a preacher.

Trevor Snapp for The New York Times

These tensions could be exacerbated by calls to negotiate with the secular Tuareg rebels, whose uprising in January 2012 started the crisis.

France, whose troops helped push the Islamists from the northern towns they held, are pressing for African troops to come garrison the cities of northern Mali before the rains arrive in March, and they are pressing President Dioncounda Traoré to start negotiations quickly with Tuareg rebels in the north, most of whom do not hold radical Islamist views.

The majority of Tuaregs, the French contend, will agree to remain in a sovereign Mali with more guarantees of political autonomy, and the French hope that a deal will lead to early national elections. The Foreign Ministry has called on the Malian government to open talks with “legitimate representatives” and “non-terrorist armed groups” in the north, a clear reference to the more secular Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, known as the M.N.L.A.

That is a message that President François Hollande of France is likely to reiterate when he meets with Mr. Traoré in the central town of Sévaré on Saturday and then travels with him to meet with French and Malian forces stationed here.

A Malian soldier with civilians in Timbuktu on Thursday, after French and Malian forces drove Islamic militants into the desert.

Benoit Tessier / Reuters

The Malian government has said it is open to talks with the rebel movement, which has dissociated itself from the Islamists, as long as it gives up its demand for full Tuareg independence. But the government has ruled out talks with Islamist groups, including Ansar Dine.

Several days after the looting ended, a group of young men had gathered, shiftless and bored in front of Mr. Ibrahim’s shop, Boutique Najat. They explained why they had taken part in the spree.

“We are punishing them for what they did to us,” said Aboukarime, a 17-year-old student who would give only his first name. “We suffered under the Islamists. They beat our mothers. They must pay.”

His friend Mohammed chimed in.

“After what they have done we cannot forgive that,” he said. “They can never come back here.”

Dr. Ibrahim Maiga, a doctor, could not prevent an amputation.

Trevor Snapp for The New York Times

Such sentiments were painful to Siolina Cissé, a tall, pale-skinned man with light brown eyes whose lineage is a mix of Arab and Songhai.

“Our religion is one of tolerance,” said Mr. Cissé, a Koranic scholar whose family has been teaching Arabic and the Koran to the children of Timbuktu for centuries. “We forget things quickly. But the trust has been broken.”

Asked if he worried that his light skin might make him a target of ethnic violence, Mr. Cissé laughed.

“There is scarcely a child in this village that I have not taught to read the Koran,” he said. “I am well known as a son of Timbuktu.”

Shops owned by Arab tradesmen have been looted. Some residents have fled, a foretaste of ethnic strife that many fear will roil Mali for years to come

The New York Times

But there are good reasons to be concerned about reprisals against people of ethnic groups associated with the Islamist and Tuareg rebels, human rights groups warned.

“Over a dozen witnesses told Human Rights Watch that pro-government militias and youth groups have prepared lists of those who would be targeted for retaliation if government forces retake the north,” Human Rights Watch said in a report released in December.

The Malian Army has been accused of executing suspected militants, and has faced accusations of torture and other mistreatment.

Three men suspected of being Islamist militants who were arrested near the town of Léré told The Associated Press that they had been subjected to a form of waterboarding.

“To force me to talk they poured 40 liters of water in my mouth and over my nostrils, which made it so that I could not breathe anymore,” one of the men, who gave his name as Ali Guindo, told The A.P. “For a moment I thought I was even going to die.”

In Timbuktu, residents said it would take a long time for the old ways of coexistence to return.

“In Timbuktu, we are not racists,” Mr. Dguitteye said. “But people are angry. They feel betrayed. The trust is lost.”